March 31, 2005

This would be bad. This would send us into Carter-like recession. Maybe worse.

Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Alaron.com, said $105 oil is technically possible but not likely for at least 3 years and only if a major supply disruption, such as a halt to imports from Saudi Arabia, occurred.

'The timing of the report was conducive to the rally,' Flynn said. 'It's just another reason to be long. There's no doubt we're in a new bull market for crude oil.' Hear audio interview.

John Kilduff, energy risk analyst Fimat USA, agreed that the $105 price assumes a major supply disruption in Saudi Arabia or a Venezuelan embargo on shipments to the U.S.

'I don't know how they get to that number, short of a significant supply disruption event occurring,' he said.

'It's more reflective, to be fair, of the psychology of the energy market right now that there's going to be tremendous demand growth in the late third and the fourth quarter of this year. That's going to put the producers of crude oil in an extremely challenging position in terms of meeting that demand, and that's what is being priced in right now.'

3
This strikes me as an attempt on Goldman-Sach's part to move oil prices in the short term. Too bad I didn't buy futures yesterday.

Posted by: mike beversluis at March 31, 2005 12:41 PM (eUZox)

4
Too bad I didn't buy futures yesterday. Too bad that's not what Goldman's saying. All the analysts on the street are coming out and lambasting this guy - kinda entertaining, and I would *NOT* want to be on the receiving end of that backlash...

Posted by: fat kid at March 31, 2005 12:44 PM (yHxMk)

5
This is a sucker game... go ahead and listen to the Goldman analyst and invest in call options on Oil futures at 60 (heck if it's going to 105, 60 is a safe bet right?)... On the bright side, you can't lose more money than you invested in the options (unlike GS, and other investers in this oil bubble which will get killed if the price of oil spikes down)

Posted by: JFH at March 31, 2005 12:50 PM (fmEeo)

6
I lived most of my life in the oilfields of west Texas and I know that this is possible but it's so improbable that I'm more worried about being struck by lightning every Wedneday for the rest of my life. If Venezuela were to cut us off they'd have to sell that oil somewhere and they'd have to lower the price to keep from bankrupting themselves, their economy is extremely fragile and if anything it would start a price war and break up OPEC. Whoever starting buying Venezuela's oil would stop buying from whatever country was supplying it before and we'd just buy from them. It's already a sellers market and I don't any OPEC member rushing out to find new customers. It might cause a short-term surge of a few dollars because of increased distance to ship it but Venezuela would also be shipping further so they'd have to lower their price accordingly to their new customer. I'm not going to lose any sleep over that article, I doubt that anyone that gives it much thought will either. The oil business has always been feast or famine, it'll swing back the other way, always has, always will.

Posted by: bullwinkle at March 31, 2005 12:55 PM (kotdI)

7
As someone also involved in the oil/NG field, I don't think it could happen either, but only because I think China is going to have their first recession very soon and that will cause the demand to slack up a HUGE amount. And even if it did occur, it would only drive gas prices up another 1.60 per gallon, bad yes. But it would hurt Europe & China even more. Europe becuase all of their social programs are floated on the back of gas taxes, (I think the avg. price in th e EU was $4/gal back when we were paying $1.25), and china because they would be hit by it harder than we since they have to import something like 80% of their oil anyway. Just my 2cents...

Posted by: McDirty at March 31, 2005 01:03 PM (YNJZw)

8
If oil hits even $80/bbl, you're going to see a lot of old fields opened back up, including most of East Texas and Louisiana. They're not profitable at current prices, but the higher amounts would suddenly make it possible.

One sign of this happening would be if a ruling gets passed on reopening old "sealed" wells. If you hear that's been done, invest in domestic production companies...

The Canadian oil sands would get a *huge* boost in production investment, too, and we'd see massive increases from there in a couple of years.

Posted by: cirby at March 31, 2005 01:12 PM (fY33n)

9
I don't think it's economically possible for the price of oil to really get that high. Once it gets to around $75/bbl, I'm pretty sure it becomes cheaper to convert coal to oil. Some company in South Africa used to do that during apartheid.

Posted by: Allen at March 31, 2005 02:56 PM (BGGiq)

10
Ace, you're easier to spook than Chicken Little. Maybe you should get a Depends blogad?

(Oops, wrong thread...)

Posted by: someone at March 31, 2005 03:08 PM (S22v9)

11
A silver lining is that would make thermal depolymerization commercially viable. It's almost there already, and it's quick and easy to set up, extremely scalable, fits into the existing oil/gasoline infrastructure, and gets rid of hydrocarbon-based waste. More.

No, it wouldn't completely replace current energy sources, but it could make a big dent and solve recycling problems at the same time.

(1) Iraq is getting its shit together, which means increased production there.

(2) Alternative-fuel vehicles are growing in popularity.

(3) Because I f'ing said so.

Posted by: Dogstar at March 31, 2005 05:54 PM (KgeNY)

14
The oil companies know that Michael Schiavo's cremation order is the signal that we are on the verge of being able to extract fuel for internal combustion engines from human corpses. They want to make as much money as they can before it becomes general knowledge.

Or maybe not.

Posted by: Dimmy at March 31, 2005 07:25 PM (vVm5J)

15
Its the "Soylent Green scenario" Dimmy - its coming if this crap keeps going the way it is, bank on it.

Posted by: at March 31, 2005 10:09 PM (P6vXb)

16
Um you're thinking of the Nixon Ford years. We had a 16 month recession in 1973-75. The recession in the Carter years was relatively mild, 6 months from Jan 1980 to June 1980. We also had a 16 month recession in 1981-1982.

We did have high inflation during the Carter years, in fact the recession of 1980 was because the Fed tightened the money supply to combat inflation and soon interest rates rose and people could get less credit or would spend less and the eventaully the GDP went down.

Posted by: at April 01, 2005 01:29 AM (frL7c)

17
The moonbats will blame George Bush for this and completely ignore the part about a disruption in Saudi production. Then, in the next breath they'll complain about our presence in Iraq.

That's like crying about being out of beer while your uncle's buying a liquor store.

Posted by: spongeworthy at April 01, 2005 05:46 AM (uSomN)

18
OPEC's way of saying "We do not want democracy in the Middle East. Hear that, America"?